


Waiting With Hope

by Merfilly



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Asian Character, Character Study, Other, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Mulan at war, how does her family fare?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting With Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EllieMurasaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).



> _Author Notes: I wish to address at the front of this that I have not meant any disrespect to the culture or history represented by **Mulan**. I have endeavored to keep within the framework of the culture and history as I understood it. If I have made any errors in this, please email me so that I may be better educated._
> 
>  
> 
> _As the name of the Grandmother was given on IMDb as Grandmother Fa, I have opted to make her the mother of Mulan's Father. I have also taken the liberty of making Fa Zhou a magistrate or other official of his village due to the apparent wealth level seen in the Fa household._
> 
>  
> 
> _This is worked strictly from the Disney version of **Mulan** which may leave it open to cultural critique more than intended. I also may be playing fast and loose with the timing involved in the movie._

There was a peace around the house of Fa in the weeks before the attack. Fa Mulan was coming of age soon, which meant festivities, and Fa Zhou had finally curtailed his workload enough to be home with Fa Li more often. Grandmother Fa was busy making the home as cozy as she could, directing the energies to accommodate Zhou's increased presence and the rambunctious chi of a child that was nearly a woman.

Grandmother watched in delight as Li and Zhou worked side by side in the garden, always perfectly responsible and composed, yet the love between them so obvious. Grandmother was always so pleased by matches that developed into affection, and had known this was a lucky union from the beginning. Certainly Mulan was a blessing, as late in life as she had come to the family, with all of her positive and boundless spirit.

Everything was going so well, and Grandmother just knew that once Mulan had seen the matchmaker that all would be just perfect.

`~`~`~`~`

Li had known all along that Mulan was a wild spirit, and had doubted, despite all the effort, that Mulan would be able to make it through the appraisal by the matchmaker. Granted, in her heart, Li worried that there was not a man suitable to her daughter. What young man raised to duty and the land would understand one born with such fire and air that she barely touched the earth?

What Li never anticipated, though, was just how far her daughter would go to protect the family honor in the aftermath of the disgrace at the matchmaker's. That had to have been the rationale in Mulan's mind to steal the sword and armor, to take Khan and leave their holding in Zhou's stead.

She offered all her prayers that Mulan was safe to the ancestors. Not for the first time, she wept over the son that had not been born to she and her husband, and felt Zhou's steadfast support.

"Should we go after her?" Li asked softly, standing in his loose embrace.

"No... for better or worse, she must make her way now. Khan can outrun any horse from our village. And if she has already encountered the Army, my presence there would be cause for too much suspicion on her." Zhou breathed deeply, but Li could tell it was costly to her husband's spirit to have to maintain such stoicism. 

"Then we pray for her," Li said, finding her own strength, knowing the cuts to Zhou's pride as a man from having his daughter go to possibly die in his place.

`~`~`~`~`

"That Fa Mulan should be here too!"

"Is it so much to ask that she do her share of the work in the fields?"

"She is as improper as a tree bent into the wind."

Grandmother tried to turn a deaf ear to the words, and refused to contemplate the darker words, the words that speculated on the death of a disgrace, either by her own hand or the hands of her family. No matter what, Zhou would never have gone that far, and been aggrieved if Mulan had.

She was old, nowhere near as spry as she needed to be, but the villagers were right in one respect. With the village sons gone, the women needed to handle more of the work than ever. She approached several of the women of Li's age, offering to take on their laundry chores to make life easier.

"Mother Fa, are you certain you can do all that work?" Li asked as she prepared to go work in Mulan's place in the fields. They had to eat, and that took many hands.

"If my granddaughter can lift a sword and armor to shield her father, I can wash a few more shirts to protect our fortunes," the older woman answered firmly.

`~`~`~`~`

"The stone guardian will need to be replaced with proper ritual," Fa Zhou commented over dinner. His wife nodded.

"I will contact the artists at the nearby temple to commision one," Fa Li promised, keeping her eyes off the plate set in their absent daughter's place. It was difficult to obey that part of her husband's wishes. He kept Mulan present in every room in little ways, as if punishing himself for her disappearance. 

"Oooh, make certain they stick to the traditional style! Too many of these young ones like to take shortcuts in the sculptures!"

"It is a tendency of the young to rush headlong down their paths, without thought to the end of it all," Zhou stated quietly, his eyes flicking to the empty place his daughter should have been in.

Li swallowed hard against her pain, and sighed softly. "Yes, but sometimes those younger ones find improbable ways to make the right choices to get the correct final result," she said to try and ease her husband's pain.

Zhou focused on her, and something in his eyes told him she had helped.

"Blossoms rarely fall far from the tree that grew them," he said aloud. "Your wisdom will guide our family, all of us, along the path that is needed."

`~`~`~`~`

The toll of the war was felt in many ways. They had no men to work the fields, no men to defend the village walls when the rumble of war trains came past. Thankfully for them all, the village was far enough off the main road to avoid the pillage that some others had known with the invasion.

Women grew drawn and tight, while some of the older men journeyed up toward the nearer city, hoping to learn news for them all. Some never returned, though letters came, saying that China had need of them.

All of it made Zhou's life more tense, for he did not want to be the old man who waited, the one left behind while men his age and near it went to find ways to serve, even though their sons had already gone.

Grandmother found her son in the garden, forcing himself to stand unaided, holding his cane as if it were the sword Mulan had taken. She stood silently, watching as he faltered, as that leg he had injured in the Emperor's service betrayed him, then swept forward.

"You are not young. You will never be young again," Grandmother admonished. "Would you take the risk your child has taken on her head, the sacrifice she has made for our family, and throw it into the wind like bird seed? To be pecked away with nothing to show in the end?"

Zhou faced his mother, leaning on the cane once more, and slowly lowered his eyes in understanding of her reproval. "It is hard, when others go. It is worse, knowing what she faces in my stead. She is my only flower, and was never meant to be cut with the steel of war."

"I say none should face war, but I am an old woman, bitter with what life demands unfairly from us."

"But you never show anything but joy in the things around you, more lively than women half your age," Zhou stated in defiance of her words. Through his own life, his mother had been a bedrock of stability to him, for his own father had served, and died, under China's call.

"Exactly! That which we feel inside does not have to be the face we put forward!" Grandmother smiled warmly at her son. "You miss Mulan and fear for her. Dwelling upon this, though, is of no use to anyone else, let alone yourself."

Zhou reflected on those words, then bowed his head slightly. "To guard against the pain of her loss, I should seek to bring honor to her sacrifice? I must accept that for me to go would be to throw ash on the fire of her spirit."

"Yes. But you can find ways to make it more palatable to your soul, by assisting those of us remaining."

"Yes, yes I can." He gave a tiny smile, more a curve at the corner of his mouth for the lesson imparted. "I shall begin by learning who among those left can use a bow, so our walls need not remain our sole protection. Stone alone is no deterrent."

Grandmother Fa gazed on her son with pride as he walked away, letting the cane assist his gait as it was supposed to. "You are where she found her strength," she said quietly, before going to the temple to make her prayers for the day.

`~`~`~`~`

Fa Li was the one who saw the rider, a youth who should still have been in the care of his mother. She called one of the young girls... one that had found her match on the day Mulan had failed, but lost her betrothed to the conscript.

"Your eyes are clearer than mine. Tell me, does the rider wear our colors, or is it an invader?"

"Rider, Mother Fa?"

"Oh climb up the wall and look for us!" Li demanded, as girls tittered and stopped working to see.

"I will, Mother Fa," another called, a little older and more accepting of the idea that roles had changed with the loss of their men. Quickly, the young woman clambered up the shallow-cut footholds so she could shade her eyes and look clearly at the rider.

"Well?"

"I see our Emperor's colors on the rider's horse and his uniform. The uniform fits him, so it is likely not stolen."

Li was impressed by that piece of logic and the choice to verify both horse and rider, rather than accepting one or the other as enough. "Keep watch for others, so we know if he is being followed, while I go tell the gate to open," she said. "Who here can run?"

After some more tittering, one girl, too young for marriage, raised her hand. 

"You listen, and if she says more are behind the rider, come to me, so we can get the gate closed in time," Li instructed before setting a swift pace to the only gate Zhou had left in working order as part of their defenses against potential invaders.

"Mother Fa," the gateman called down to her, but his eyes stayed out on the speck coming closer. "Did you see the rider from the west fields?" He was a middle aged man, still firm of arm, long of sight, but slipping in his speed.

"We did, and his colors... horse and uniform that fits, by the younger eyes I borrowed... are our Emperor's," she confirmed. "One of the young girls is to come running if they see more dust on the horizon."

"Wise of you, Mother Fa. Should we raise the gate?"

"Horse wide, so if he is ahead of an army, we can close it swiftly," she told the man. "Is my husband walking the defenses?"

"He checked on me when the sun was an eighth higher," the guard confirmed, even as he called down to the older men working the gate mechanism.

"Then I will wait here for him to return, as the messenger should be for him."

"And if there is danger on the wind behind?" the gate watch asked.

Li's face hardened. "Then I will be on hand to help turn it aside from us."

`~`~`~`~`

The rider waited with his horse, accepting feed and water for the beast, and a cup of tea for himself, for the provincial leader of this town. Fa Zhou was a decorated hero of a previous war, and it had been his wife that saw the young rider to the stable near the wall.

"I can't wait long," the rider, impatient to continue on, complained.

"And you shall not," Zhou said as he entered and stood solemnly near the door. The young rider bowed his head, and then drew in a deep breath.

"You are to increase your watchfulness and man the fire tower for your village day and night," he began, reciting from memory, though an imperial scroll remained tucked in his uniform.

"We are doing so," Zhou acknowledged, remembering the last attempted invasion too well to fail such basic precautions.

"The Army's main body was met by the invaders, and despite heroic effort, it is reported that none remain," the rider continued, face carefully held blank.

Li made a small noise of protest, but Zhou raised his hand for her silence, keeping himself calm.

"No survivors?"

"A few who have made their way toward the smaller army further west from here," the rider answered. "The trainees' camp is to be mobilized, but as it had neither experienced officers nor experienced men, the Emperor has sent for more fighters from the south to meet his western units."

Li let those words be her sole hope. Surely her daughter would still have been among the trainees... if her secret had not been learned and her life forfeited already.

"Does the Emperor have need of more of us from the villages?" Zhou asked dutifully.

"No disrespect, honored Elder, but the villages must hold and work their fields, to feed us once the invasion has been dealt with," the rider said, preserving the illusions so that Zhou did not have to take offense.

"Very well." Zhou stepped aside as a young girl came, carrying a feed bag for the horse, and fresh food supplies for the rider himself. "May the wind hold true beneath your steed," he said, in blessing of the impatient rider's need to continue on.

"And may the invaders fall upon themselves and rot before they blight any more of China's greatness," the rider said, mounting once more to ride forth with his news.

The one who had brought food turned and left, letting the Fa family be alone with the news that had been brought. Zhou did not move, but Li did, coming close to rest her hand on his.

"Mulan..."

"Must still live," Zhou answered her fears. "The other armies will soon meet, and this will end. Our blossom will return to us."

"I so hope you are correct, husband." She left him, for there was work to be done, but her keen ears heard his final words on the matter.

"As do I."

`~`~`~`~`

The words of the rider were relayed in solemn tones, and those who had served in campaigns before winced to know that the army of the north had been defeated so soundly. On the next day, at the lessons Zhou was giving the girls of the village in archery, there were new women, old and young. 

Grandmother Fa was relieved to see the seriousness that her fellow village members were taking the potential defense of their homes. Older men manned the walls, matrons prepared stockpiles of food and medicines, and the young boys who had not been of age to fight pestered their veterans for how to make armor or mock-fought with wooden swords.

She fell into the rhythm of her washing, trying not to think too far from the moment as she did. The news that the training camp had been spared was hope to the Fa family, but a thin one. For once, Grandmother could only pray that Mulan's spirit had not yet met the demands of her body, and that she had still been training.

"How do we prepare for the possible dishonor if she is found out?" Grandmother asked the empty walls around her. Zhou would not speak of that possibility any more than he would speak of Mulan's likely death during this war. No girl was meant to be a warrior, no matter that they had to defend the home and fields when the men were away.

"Stop borrowing trouble from the future, foolish old woman," she chided herself, and set herself to singing a work song to distract herself further.

`~`~`~`~`

"Do you remember how Mulan was as a small child?" Li asked softly, the meal consumed, and quiet sitting heavily on the family now.

Zhou gave a small smile for his memories, because Mulan had been... ingenious at finding new trouble. "I do. I believe our chickens eventually forgave her for her attempt to gift me with a cloak of feathers."

Grandmother laughed loudly at that. "Oh but I had a time replacing all the candles she used for the wax to fix them together!"

"And the mess was not so much to clean up, when she stood too near to the fire with it and all of the feathers and wax melted out of her hands!" Li said in remembered delight and exasperation.

"She was set on finding a unique present for her father that year, yes," Grandmother said warmly. "So disappointed in herself that her first idea failed, but she continued to seek the right gift."

Zhou nodded. "And in the end, it was not something she made, save the memories of the attempts, but the sheer fact that she is such a unique flame flickering in the wind that graces my soul always."

Li nodded. "I admit to have despaired of the girl many times, for her feet never root in earth for long."

"Some are born of smoke, some of fire, and yet they always offer what they are." Grandmother sighed softly. "I think we have always known Mulan was not meant for the country wife role. This act of hers, so brave and full of duty to honor and family, only shows us that she is meant to be held to a different life."

The patriarch of the family considered those words, then slowly nodded. "Life has a pattern much as cloth does. But where would we be if all cloth was made to the same pattern, ever solid and unchanging?" He finished his tea and stood, considering his daughter's unique place in their lives. "When she returns, I will strive to listen more closely to the whispers of her pattern."

"Yes, when," Li said fervently.

"Mulan rarely fails at the course she sets herself without finding some way to turn failure to success," Grandmother opined, before seeing that the meal was fully cleared away, with Li to help her wash.

`~`~`~`~`

As the days drew on, and no more riders appeared, Li worried further. Could she honestly expect her child to pull off the deception she had undertaken for the duration of a war? If her body was left to a battlefield, how would they identify her? A woman impersonating a soldier was a grave offense, and death would not erase that stigma. Zhou's sword and armor would be marked in ways that would bring it back home, but would her commanding officers pretend that Mulan had never been there?

She knew she was worrying far too much over the honor of the situation, but it was far easier than to honestly think about her life if Mulan actually did die and never came home. Zhou had been indulgent in his own way to Mulan, and Li had encouraged that, as it softened her husband some. Grandmother had taken on much of the trouble that raising a child could be, leaving Li more able to assist Zhou in his duties of their village. Yet Li had to admit Mulan had been the brightest spark within their home. As quiet as the love she shared with Zhou burned, it was a pale candle compared to the light Mulan brought to most who knew her.

"Come home, daughter, safe and sound," she whispered on the air.

`~`~`~`~`

"It is the waiting that weighs on us. So we shall begin to prepare ideas for when China has ousted her invaders," Grandmother Fa stated calmly, and the villagers looked at her in surprise.

"Grandmother Fa, the last we knew, our Army of the North had been decimated," one called back to her.

"Yes, but we have other armies, and we have seen neither more messengers of ill tidings nor invaders themselves." She pointed to the trees. "It would soon be time for an annual festival, and I say that we will prepare for it. Small and modest, but there must be a festival to celebrate the life we have, and to show the spirits we keep them in honor always."

Zhou nodded, then looked at the villagers. "We shall prepare. The guards on the walls will be shortened, and all will serve that day, but Grandmother speaks wisely. We have no reason to believe the war goes poorly still. We have every reason to hope. A festival will remind us all, and our ancestors, of the spirit that lives within China, even in times of need."

"Yes, this is what we should do!" Fa Li called in support of her family's idea, and more of the older men nodded in time with her words. Women, seeing their fathers and grandfathers in agreement, began to discuss how to have a festival that would be quiet, use little of what they had set aside, and still do honor to their ancestor spirits.

Grandmother Fa moved away from the forefront, smiling at the idea that she had sparked among her friends and family, to be intercepted by her son.

"Thank you."

She looked at Zhou with kind eyes. "The waiting hurts. Not just our family, though we must keep our worries quiet."

"So it does."

`~`~`~`~`

"Fa Zhou! Fa Zhou, come quickly!"

Li and Grandmother heard the excited cries for their patriarch and quickly went to the garden where the very same young rider from before was shouting. Zhou came from his meditations to meet the rider, and both women lingered to hear.

"Apologies for bringing my news to your house, but it is grand news! Captain Li has completely overcome the invaders with his trainees! The other armies never made it far enough to even do battle with them! Captain Li has saved us all, and the Emperor has dictated that there will be a festival across all of China for the win!"

Zhou took a deep breath and then let it go with deliberation. "Is that the full news for me?"

The rider looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, Elder, it is. I have other villages to tell, but I wished you to know the good news directly from me and the guard at the gate said you had not yet come to inspect the walls." He then smiled, looking up at the sun which had barely burnished the sky with new color. "I may have ridden under the moon to get the news out."

"A dedicated man you are, and I pray your civil service knows nothing but honor as it has begun with," Zhou said kindly. "Take feed from my stock, and visit my kitchen if you will."

"I have plenty and wish to make as many villages as I may!" He turned to go back to his horse, leaving the family with the weight of what had not been said. Zhou waited a long moment in silence, then looked to his wife and mother sadly before returning to his morning ritual.

"No news," Li murmured.

"It may yet be the best of news!" Grandmother scolded fiercely.

"Hope grows faint, now that our nation is safe."

`~`~`~`~`

The next rider to come to the village was wearing the livery of the Emperor himself, and carrying a sealed message. He did not speak to any but the guard at the gate, inquiring where he could find Fa Zhou, Eternal Friend of China. That formal of an address set the guard aback, but he hastily selected two of the elder men serving near his position to lead the messenger to the house of Fa Zhou.

One guard went inside to get Zhou, bringing him from his accounting to see the messenger. The messenger merely dismounted and bowed, deeply, before holding out the sealed message. "From the Emperor himself, Honored Elder."

With a hand that did not betray the trembling he felt, Zhou broke the seal and began to read to himself, even as the women of his house joined them.

Li waited as patiently as she could, but she saw the signs of great emotion in her husband. Whatever the message said, it had moved the stoic man near to breaking, for his hand did shake as he folded the message and tucked it into his clothing for safekeeping.

"My house is deeply humbled by the Emperor's notice, and we are always his servants." Zhou bowed to the courier. "Grandmother, please see to feeding our gracious messenger. Li, make arrangements for him to rest, and his horse."

His orders given, he turned and started toward the wall with the two guards, leaving both women to wonder just what had been communicated, but all honor had to be paid to the Emperor's messenger.

"Well, surely you know what was in the message, young man," Grandmother entreated the courier as she led him to the kitchen. He did not break his formal bearing, well-trained in the intricacies of protocol.

"While I may not divulge private communications, it is known through the Imperial City that the Emperor paid great honor to the warrior once called Fa Ping, who was revealed as Fa Mulan to one and all when she defeated the leader of the invaders."

"What?!" Li exclaimed walking with them to the kitchen rather than immediately seeing to the horse.

"The message delivered has all details, Honored Matron."

"And we'll get them as soon as Zhou has the village in hand!" Grandmother cackled happily. "Oh that little spark of fire and smoke was all she needed to get by!" she added, all but dancing through the care of the courier, who would later swear he had never dined or rested better than in the joyous house of the Fa family.

`~`~`~`~`

It was breakfast the next day before Fa Zhou was able to share the full news with his household. He had carefully stored the message in his desk, after reading it in private one more time and weeping in relief at the most important, to him, part.

His blossom lived, and would soon be home. She had been detained for an official thanksgiving and honor demanded that she be graceful in attending it, but all he needed was the knowledge she was safe.

"Our daughter has brought honor to us all," he said, and Li smiled, her soul at peace with the troubling decision that had led to this point. "China is safe, the Emperor lives still, and she will soon be home with us. Where her life goes from here is an unknown journey, but our ancestors have found her spirit worthy, I have no doubt."

"Of course they have!" Grandmother scolded lovingly. "And when she comes home, she will be our fairest flower even still! What other maiden can claim that an Emperor saw fit to bow to her?"

"The village knows?" Li asked.

Zhou shook his head. "I have no way to know her heart on the matter. People will talk as trade comes again, but for now, they only know that China was saved by a handful of dedicated warriors."

"You didn't tell them?!" Grandmother demanded, surprised.

"The burden of fame is a heavy one," Li temporized. "By waiting until she is safe here, it gives her a chance of a normal life, if that is her choice."

"Hmph." Grandmother then considered. "Of course, many young men might come seeking her hand now if it were widely known. That could be setting fish out to stink, so perhaps it is the wisest course."

"So I thought. Mulan does not need to be faced with those seeking her status rather than her heart," Zhou said.

"Now we wait once more," Li said with a sigh.

"Now we wait, but we wait knowing that she will return as some who left shall not," Zhou agreed.

`~`~`~`~`

With the guard on the wall dismissed, and families preparing for the influx of returning soldiers, Mulan had been able to quietly bring Khan (and Mushu and Cri-Kee) back to their home without much fanfare at all. Her reappearance baffled some, as the notion of her being part of the army was not one they had yet begun to whisper among themselves.

It was Li, feeding the chickens, who first saw her, and Grandmother soon after, but Mulan was walking so quietly, so carefully controlled, that Li hesitated to go to her immediately.

From quiet observation, then, both women saw as Mulan made her way to her father, dropping gracefully before the man whom she had replaced in the conscription. Tears threatened as Li saw the reunion, and how fiercely Zhou embraced his child.

Their house could have peace again, Grandmother thought, itching to go and find out all that she could. She wanted the details of how Mulan had fared, even as she saw the changes. Fire burned away impurities, and what they saw now in the young woman was tempered steel. 

As both women were preparing to intrude on the reunion, another voice made itself known, and they found themselves staring at the broad shoulders of a decorated soldier seeking their Mulan.

"It seems Mulan has brought home more than the Emperor's grace," Grandmother snickered, as the young man and Mulan faced one another with no war to intrude on what they could be.

"Perhaps there will be a wedding after all!" Li happily exclaimed.

"Perhaps," Grandmother said, wisely appraising the young couple, both so shy and unsure of how to proceed. 

`~`~`~`~`

As night settled in, and Mulan tried to sleep where she had grown up, aware of the guest under their roof, she counted her blessings that had come with making a difficult choice. Her eyes closed, and she dared dream of standing still for a time.

Her soul was no longer as light as smoke, but her fire would burn for all time, lighting hearts and minds with her heroism. Grandmother Fa knew this as she padded past the woman's room, heading out to the temple.

"Thank you for watching over her, for bringing her home," Grandmother said to the ancestral spirits. "Now let's see if we can keep things from being quite so interesting too soon, heh?"

A tiny dragon, guardian of the family once more, just smiled proudly.

`~`~`~`~`


End file.
